Instant Wake

I have the same problem with my 2010 MBA. Formatting and reinstalling the operating system does not help. I've had the laptop at an Apple Store for two weeks for testing and they found nothing out of the ordinary. All I've been told is that this kind of delay is "normal" in Mountain Lion. That even the Retina MBP has a delay. However, of course there is limit to what kind of a delay is acceptable. I will probably take the MBA back there at some point.

We can hope that Apple will fix this, but then again... this has been a problem since the release of Lion and has only gotten worse so far...

A thing I have noticed to help with this is: close all programs before closing the lid of the laptop. There will still be a delay, but less often and it will be less severe. Of course this will make Power Nap pretty useless as a feature.


Funny thing is that my old 2008 MBP (on Mountain Lion) has no delay ever.

 

Mine was "instant" the first time i fired up lol after that nah, anyway it only takes couple of secs to start if its shutdown and awakes almost instant; only have problem when its closed for long time then it takes some seconds for the keyboard to respond to type password.

 

try this in Terminal:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 2

It sets your Air to not suspend RAM to the SSD until your battery hits Critical low. Your Sleep will spend a bit more battery, but your Instant Wake should be back.

I just wish it didn't take my Air longer to shut down than a 15in Pro with a HDD.

 

Do people with this problem have a lot of background programs running? I've never had an issue, but I also make it a point to have as few startup and background programs as possible. The only things I actually allow are email, Evernote, Caffeine, and Battery Health. Sometimes the email app causes some problems when I shut down - try force quitting that before putting the computer to sleep.

 

I was unable to find any official Apple information on what hibernatemode 2 actually is. Only good information Google provided was to do with hibernation modes 0, 3 and 25

 

I'm searching for where I originally got it from, but I no longer have an Instant wake issues.

 

My 2010 MBP with Snow Leopard on a HDD was more 'instant on' than my 2012 13" MBA lol.

 

I personally have noticed that the wakeup speed is generally shorter after I have started always closing Safari and Mail before closing the lid.

iTunes is also a quite heavy program, so if I were you I would also close it.

EDIT:

In the last week or so I've had much less delays with waking up from sleep. The only programs I have on when closing the lid are:

Caffeine
Dropbox
Little Snitch 3
Divvy

 

Everybody wants a Ferrari that drinks like a Toyota.

I use hibernate mode 0 myself. If I lose my context, no big deal.

1-5s wake up time.

 

Not a whole lot. If I put it to sleep when I go to bed and pick it back up when I get home from work, about 20hrs, it's lost probably around ~10%. It's definitely more than the default, but not enough for me to really care about.